Forwarded from Xxxx [Egyptian feminism]

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[Xxxx, as you can see, this came through without the spillover problem.]

The Isis Inside Her, Cairo Times, 10 July 1997, Vol. 1, Iss. 10
http://www.cairotimes.com/

( the part of the interview about the "uterus culture" is interesting:) Xxxx

Nawal Sadawi

"After five years away, what brought her back? I was fed up with living
outside of my country. I was happy teaching my novels at Duke, attending
international conferences.. And it was relaxing to take a breath, but I had
to come back. Part of the reason she has returned is to organize the
upcoming Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA) conference in October.
Once the largest women's organization in the Arab world, with its
headquarters in Egypt, AWSA was dissolved by the Egyptian government after
the organization took a critical stance on the Gulf War. AWSA's case
against the government has been languishing for years, postponed since
1991. We had the best 13 lawyers in the country. There is no justice in the
courts, Sadawi says. Though the Egyptian organization is illegal, its
international branch is not, and it is the international branch which will
serve as the official host of the conference. The irony is not lost on
Sadawi".

"Yet Sadawi boycotted the Beijing conference and the International
Conference on Population and Development in Cairo the previous year.
Egypt's problem is not fertility, she says tartly. AWSA's philosophy is
completely different. We're not talking about birth control; we're speaking
about the new world order, about neo-colonialism, about the relationship of
patriarchy and class to the state and internationally".

"It is this linkage, she claims, that upsets the government, explaining why
a recent television interview that she gave was censored. They don't want
me to link the local patriarchy and the international system, especially in
Africa. People here are suffering a great deal, she argues. And she has
nothing but disgust for the turn towards privatization in Egypt.We've
become a country of business, business, business. The patriarchal class is
increasing in power. What is all this business? And this so-called
structural adjustment? She practically spits the phrase out. Her criticism
of the economic situation is unequivocal, but she concedes that
politically, things are better--or so they appear.  It's the American model
of democracy, she shrugs; you can say anything and nothing happens, nothing
changes. You can criticize the government, but the system is very
strong.The system is the same all over the world now, run by the
capitalist-military-patriarchal class. Fighting words, but like other
intellectuals, Sadawai has little concrete suggestions to throw into the
activist vacuum. I believe very much in globalization from below, she says,
somewhat lamely. How? Conferences. We must organize".

"Leftists and the government criticize Sadawi equally. The Marxists--they
don't want to speak about anything except class. I link patriarchy to
class, economy to sex--and they want to avoid it. A leftist can't liberate
his wife, but he can his daughter. They hate me because I liberate their
wives".

"Though married three times and the mother of two, Sadawi assails what she
calls the uterus culture. People talk about the penis culture --there's
also a uterus culture. The organ that really oppresses us is the uterus.
Warming to her subject, she describes biological children as an illusion
and blood relations as a fiction. I don't believe in a society that
regulates love according to blood relations. I love my daughter because she
came from my uterus? she says incredulously. Nor does the lady believe in
any aspect of what she calls shehada culture--marriage, birth or death
certificates".

"Her outright rejection of veiling--which she sees as a sign of fear and
intimidation is well known. Nor does she have any use for the western
obsession with health and beauty. Make-up is a post-modern veil, she
laughs. Look at this face! Why should I hide my pretty brown color or my
wrinkles? Each one of them has a story to tell".

"Childhood is the decisive time for girls, she says. We are taught to be
inferior, obedient, to lose self-confidence. It's the socialization of a
complete human being into a slave. I escaped all that by a miracle--though
I was circumcised, I didn't escape that. Psychologically, I escaped because
of this Isis inside me. Her scorn for religious fundamentalists of all
types is withering. Other intellectuals of the region, faced with the
Islamicization of society, have engaged themselves with religion, but they
are all, according to Sadawi, "confused." AWSA was open to everybody.
Safinaz Kazem [a highly regarded Islamist thinker, previously a Marxist who
once described Sadawi in print as `that circumcised peasant'] came and gave
a lecture. It was ridiculous. She was talking nonsense about Muslims,
[saying] Everyone who doesn't see Islam as the solution is corrupt or
atheist."

"And she's already working on an ambitious book which she will not discuss
other than to say I want to bring the spirit to the body. The empty culture
in America, she's convinced, came from separating the spiritual from the
material. Abdel Wahab Al Messiri says western civilization is
materialistic, Islamic civilization is spiritual. This is nonsense, says
Sadawi. It means he is ignorant of the West. How can we say the East is
spiritual?  But if we insist that the East is spiritual, we're maintaining
the split. We have to find another language. We have to invent one. A word
that is not spirit, not body, but both. I want it to be a lovely word."



--

Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/